GENE TECHNOLOGY
6
OCTOBER 2004
TThe long-term forecast for Australia's grain
industry is: hot, dry and salty. It means
that whatever today's concerns are about
genetically modified (GM) crops, economic
and environmental necessity may make the use
of transgenic tools in agriculture essential.
Agriculture's perennial nemeses, drought and salinity,
have already laid siege to Australia's grain belt.
Global warming is likely to lift average temperatures
by several degrees in less than 25 years, and is already
displacing rain-bearing weather systems south, away
from the southern grain belt. Precipitation is declining,
evaporation is increasing, and the consequences for
dryland grain production are potentially serious.
Rising groundwater tables are bringing ancient salt to
the surface across an ever-larger area of Australia, and the
area of salinised farmland could more than double in the
same period.
In laboratories around Australia, molecular plant
breeders are working to develop GM grain crops --
especially wheat -- with greater tolerance of environmental
stresses including drought, salinity, frost and heavy-metal
toxicity.
But the research enterprise, and the evaluation of GM
crops, is up against a strong campaign that has seen five
state governments and the ACT ban the commercial
release of GM herbicide-tolerant canola.
In 1988, Australia became the first nation to release a
genetically modified organism into the environment -- a
GM bacterium that protects fruit trees against crown gall
disease. Yet 16 years on, pesticide-resistant GM cotton
remains Australia's only commercial GM crop. It saved
the cotton industry from extinction, and for many people
it stands as a testament to gene technology's promise to
transform agriculture in the 21st century.
Genome projects on rice, and the Arabidopsis plant,
are throwing up a host of new genes, and a wealth of
information about their function.
Plant gene technology is now mature, setting the stage
for dramatic gains in both the quality and productivity of
traditional grain crops, that would have been impossible
with conventional breeding techniques.
Yet in 2004, GM crops are effectively locked out of
the field across temperate Australia, and the nation lags
far behind even developing nations like India, China, and
South Africa in the GM revolution.
With its dry, erratic climate, poor soils and a litany
of environmental catastrophes from past agricultural
practices, Australia probably has more to gain from GM
agriculture than any other developed nation.
Take WA, the state with the most serious salinity
problems. It is expecting to lose four times its present area
of salt-affected farmland to the 'white blight' by 2030.
Perth wheat-breeding company Grain Biotech Australia
Pty Ltd is using gene technology to develop a salt-tolerant
wheat that could help threatened farms to remain viable.
Grain Biotech molecular geneticists have transferred a
salt-tolerance gene from a broadleaf plant into a popular,
high-yielding WA cultivar, creating a GM wheat that
thrives in 30 percent seawater in hydroponic culture.
On this measure, farmers could grow the new GM
wheat around salinised depressions, below the
contour line where even the most salt-tolerant
cereal, barley, fails.
The company believes salt-tolerant GM wheat varieties
could keep millions of hectares of salt-affected land in
production -- not just in WA, but across the Australian
wheat belt.
It plans to apply to the national GM watchdog, the
Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR), to
conduct a limited, controlled field trial in WA next year.
Grain Biotech's general manager Dr Paul Fox says
most grain farmers in the area chosen for the trial support
the project. However, he says the first commercial crops
of the new GM wheat are unlikely to be grown in WA -- or
anywhere else in Australia.
Dr Fox says the company has abandoned its plan for a
2008 commercial launch in Australia, and is now looking
to take its salt-tolerant wheat overseas.
He says the company remains optimistic it will be in
What
price for
science
spurned?
The GRDC is committed to supporting research into gene technologies, including
gene modification. The following report outlines some of the issues and
concerns for advocates and also for those still not sure about GM technology.
Plant gene technology is setting
the stage for gains that would
have been impossible with
conventional breeding techniques,
writes GRAEME O'NEILL
Staying optimistic:
Grain Biotech's general
manager Dr Paul Fox.
Photo: Evan Collis
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